“TO DEFINE IS TO LIMIT” – MY TRIBUTE TO OSCAR WILDE

While I certainly appreciate and admire my fellow American writers, I must admit my favorite authors are typically English. I also love Irish writers!

Having no English or Irish roots must account for at least part of my fascination. (I am similarly intrigued with bygone eras.) However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that many brilliant storytellers have come out of Ireland and England.

Oscar Wilde is high on that list for me. I have been a fan of Wilde’s talent, insight, and humor since my teenage years. I have found him to be one of the most entertaining writers of all time. The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably the work I enjoyed most. “To define is to limit” is one of the many quotes that resonated with me. If I listed them all, this blog would go on forever.

In putting together this tribute, I uncovered some interesting tidbits about Oscar Wilde. I read, for the first time, about his wife, Constance and his two boys, Cyril and Vyvyan, the latter of whom was sickly as well as mischievous. I learned more about loyal Constance, who suffered because of Oscar’s affairs, and that she ultimately had an affair of her own! I read of accusations against his surgeon father having allegedly raped a patient while she was under anesthesia in his care.

Wilde certainly had a wealth material to incorporate into his incredible tales.

I was surprised to discover he had been buried not in Dublin, but at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France. He shares this resting place with Frederic Chopin, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Isadora Duncan, Honoré de Balzac, Marcel Proust, and many more!

My tribute to Oscar Wilde has been fun to research and put together. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Oscar Wilde as a child

Oscar Wilde’s boyhood home

Trinity College in Dublin
Oscar Wilde attended this school, as did Samuel Beckett.

View of Trinity College at night

Trinity College

Constance Wilde, wife of Oscar Wilde

Cyril Wilde, firstborn son of Oscar and Constance Wilde

Constance Wilde with firstborn son, Cyril

Vyvyan Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s son with Constance Wilde

Viv Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s children
Don’t know the identity of the man in this photo.

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Kyrian Lyndon is the author of Shattering Truths, the first book in her Deadly Veils series. She has published two poetry collections, A Dark Rose Blooms, and Remnants of Severed Chains, as well as several articles for Rebelle Society and The Voice of Literature e-zines.
She is the founder and publisher of Moonlit Dawn Publications and Brave Wings magazine and also the editor-in-chief of Brave Wings. Brave Wings magazine promotes healing and empowerment through the written word. “Its focus,” she says, “is on the human condition—whatever we experience in life that helps us learn, grow, and evolve.”
Kyrian is forthcoming about being a person with many years of recovery, as well as a trauma survivor. Throughout her journeys, she has expressed her thoughts through poetry, embracing every challenge to triumph over adversity. In her conviction that learning, growing, healing, and evolving is a never-ending process, she remains as grateful for the dark days as she is for every flicker of hope and light. Her passion for awareness advocacy and sharing insight motivates her to entertain in ways that provoke, enrich, and inspire.
She began writing short stories and fairy tales when she was just eight years old. In her adolescence, she moved on to poetry. At sixteen, while working as an editor for her high school newspaper, she wrote her first novel and then completed two more books at the ages of nineteen and twenty-five.
Kyrian has always been passionate about music (all kinds). She loves nineteenth-century British literature, parallel universe fiction, thrillers, horror, and dark romanticism. She is also devoted to fitness which is a must, she says, if you enjoy cooking (and eating) as much as she does.
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